Advancing The Issue: Blackwater Scandal

The Fallout Continues After Reports Of Deadly Incidents.

Iraqis Run Into Wall Seeking Accountability

October 09, 2007|By TINA SUSMAN/Los Angeles Times

BAGHDAD — The young biology student pulled his car to the side of the busy traffic circle when he saw a fast-moving line of sport utility vehicles approaching from behind. As they flew past, he recalls, the lead vehicle appeared to smash intentionally into his sedan. But the worst was yet to come.

As the convoy sped off, a gunner inside the last SUV sprayed the traffic circle with bullets. Pedestrians ran for cover. Seated in the car closest to the SUV, student Ali Karem Fakhri Hilal thrust his hands into the air to show he was unarmed.

But four cars behind him, Hussein Salih Mohammed Rabee, a retired businessman active in a local peace committee, was fatally wounded.

Nearly two months after the Aug. 13 shooting in Hillah, 60 miles south of Baghdad, nobody has been held accountable for Rabee's death. His sons say the provincial police commander and a U.S. Army officer told them that Blackwater USA, the same company accused of killing at least 11 Iraqis at a Baghdad traffic circle Sept. 16, was responsible. Hillah residents held a protest outside the office of an American nongovernmental agency known to use Blackwater guards , waving banners and demanding Blackwater be brought to justice.

But like most Iraqis affected by shootings involving private security firms, Rabee's relatives have hit the shield that protects the companies. It is almost impossible for Iraqis to prove who did the shooting. Even if they can, the security firms claim immunity from prosecution.

The Rabee family's story shows the futility of trying to press charges against foreign companies, which have been accused of causing scores of deaths and injuries in Iraq. They operate with virtual impunity as they tear through crowded city streets. The unmarked convoys push slow- moving vehicles out of their way, fire at anyone who is perceived as a threat, and make it clear their priority is to protect their high-profile wards.

Blackwater, which protects State Department officials, the U.S. ambassador and others, has a perfect record in that regard. It has not lost a client in Iraq.

"This company killed my father and left him on the street," said one of Rabee's sons, Bahaa Hussein Salih Rabee, the head of the physics department at Babil University in Hillah.

He and another brother, Safa, a businessman living in Britain, say they met with the provincial police commander, Brig. Gen. Qais Hamza Mamouri, and U.S. Army Lt. Col. Thomas Roth days after Rabee's death. Both expressed their condolences but explained there was nothing they could do because of Blackwater's immunity.

"I said, why? He was innocent," Safa said by telephone Friday, his voice shaking with rage as he discussed his father's death.

Roth did not respond directly to questions. However, his public-relations officer, Maj. Dave Butler of the Army's 4th Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, said in an e-mail response: "Based on Blackwater's ongoing investigation, we cannot comment on any incidents allegedly involving Blackwater."

Memos prepared for this week's U.S. congressional hearings into Blackwater, and based on company and State Department reports, say the three security firms under State Department contract in Iraq -- Blackwater, Triple Canopy, and DynCorp International -- were involved in at least 306 shootings between Jan. 1, 2005, and April 20 this year. Blackwater was involved in 168, Dyncorp 102, and Triple Canopy 36.

One State Department employee in Iraq, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said most Blackwater guards were well-behaved and simply doing the job they were hired to do: protect clients in a dangerous environment. Their duties "are not conducive to keeping everyone alive," said the official, but that does not make all Blackwater guards demons. "They're getting this bad rap for being the guys from the wild, wild West."

For Iraqis, that reputation was sealed by the Sept. 16 shootings in Baghdad. Blackwater guards say they fired in self-defense, but Iraqi witnesses say the barrage of gunfire was unprovoked and typical of security companies' actions when slowed by heavy traffic.

Some U.S. lawmakers are pushing legislation that would force contractors to answer to U.S. laws when operating overseas, but that won't help people such as the Rabees. *